Voter Turnout Today Could Pass 2008 Total, Board of Elections Says

This might not surprise anyone who's been stuck in line at a polling place today, but D.C. is set to surpass the vote total from the 2008 election, according to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics.

"We have many more voters than we had in 2008," says DCBOEE spokeswoman Agnes Moss. While the DCBOEE doesn't have figures available for how many people have voted so far, Moss says anecdotal data and early-voting turnout suggests that the District's total this year will beat 2008's 266,871 cast ballots.

Moss blames the high turnout for delays at polls, but insists that the number of voting machines has either stayed the same or increased.

Another factor in today's delays: polling stations with just one electronic voting machine. Moss blames that short supply on 2008 data, which suggested few people wanted to vote electronically.

I've lived in DC since 1980, most of my adult life. During that time I've seen many parts of DC become wealthier, and other parts be ignored and left behind.

As the federal government expanded, new people moved into DC to take federal jobs as lawyers, lobbyists and technocrats, often making 6 and sometimes 7 figure salaries. The drove up rents and real estate prices, and spurred a rapid torrent of condo conversions.

The DC government fed on this real estate boom, swelling on rising property and real estate transaction taxes. The DC budget is now just under $10 billion dollars, and less than $3 billion comes from the federal government's payments to DC.

That pot of money has attracted a political class, a new one of whose members is indicted every other month for fraud, embezzlement, corruption, misuse of funds.

But that political class does not give you, the DC resident, better schools. They don't do anything to fix the problem of old power lines that lead to week long power outages for tens of thousands of people after each major storm.

And they don't listen to you or attend to your interests. When you voted 2 to 3 (in every Ward) for term limits a few years ago, the City Council nullified your election. Last month I was at a forum for city council candidates where all but two of the incumbents (Bowser and Wells, who however also said the opposed term limits personally) openly said they believe leadership consists of doing what they believe in, regardless of what voters say, and they would happily overturn term limits and other referenda again and again. Several years after over turning your term limits initiative we learned that the government water utility had threatened its own scientist when she came to them with the information that DC had extremely high lead levels, endangering DC children. Only when this was exposed by a whistleblower and the press did the city council and the political class show concern - why didn't they know about the problem already?

The political class puts your children in jail for marijuana possession, or gives them a criminal record that makes it harder for them to get jobs. (DC arrests 8,000 people a year for drugs, and 19,000 people a year for violent crimes from murder to arson, showing a huge misuse of policy and corrections resources.). The political class sends your children to badly conceived, endless wars ( and doesn't provide them with the tools to protect themselves while they are there). Obama has done this as much as Bush, and my opponent Delegate Norton has said nothing effective in protest.

I support term limits, school choice, drug amnesty, punishing corrupt politicians, bringing our children home from endless wars, lower taxes, and an end to runaway spending.

I am Bruce Majors, the Libertarian candidate for DC Delegate to Congress and I ask for your vote. Voting for me creates a new reform minded party critical of government excess and sends a message to the old politicians.